


Trinkets to Remember Her By

by twilighteve



Series: Pnat Prompts [1]
Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, family bonding maybe?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 00:48:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8035759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilighteve/pseuds/twilighteve
Summary: Max collects metallic trinkets; Dad notices. When he realizes why Max does what he does, he decides to give him a little gift.





	Trinkets to Remember Her By

It didn’t take long for him to realize that there was a growing pile of metallic objects in Max’s room.

Well, to say _pile_ wasn’t correct, exactly. Max had obviously taken the time to care for them, judging from the sparkling condition they were in. Not to mention that they occupied a shelf that looked suspiciously self-made on the wall, and how they were obviously lined in order of _something_. Size was one thing: he noticed how the metal trinkets grew in size the closer they got to the bottom of the shelf. He was fairly certain there was some other kind of order, but he hadn’t figured that one yet.

Not only in size, the things differed in forms too. They ranged from simple things like paperclips to bolts to sculptures of animals. The sculptures were… intriguing. How did Max get them?  They didn’t seem to be cheap, and he wasn’t sure Max even had the money to buy them. Or were they gifts? From who?

The door swung open, and he turned. Immediately, his eyes met Max’s. The boy stood at his door, staring at him with his mouth partly open.

“Dad, what are you doing in my room?” he finally settled.

Dad blinked. “Oh, me? Don’t mind me, I’m just cleaning!”

Max gave him a deadpan look. “You don’t need a machete to clean someone’s room, Dad. Besides, I can clean my own room.”

Dad rolled his eyes. “Oh, I know you’re perfectly capable of cleaning, Max. I want to help you! Aren’t I a good father?”

Max’s deadpan look intensified. “That doesn’t explain the machete.”

“Hey, you often speak by yourself in your room. Who am I to know if it’s not something that’ll be dangerous?”

Max’s face contorted into a look of a deer in the headlights for a moment before he shook his head. “If I converse with something I’m pretty sure it’s safe, Dad. Besides, I don’t talk by myself.”

Dad tilted his head. “So you talk with someone?”

Max’s eyes flickered to his bed. “Uh, yeah. On my phone.”

“Oh, alright then!” Dad dropped the machete to the floor. It clanged against the tiles, making Max wince. “Sooo. What’s all these trinkets here?”

“Ah, those,” Max pursed his lips and scratched his head. “They’re, um. My… collection?”

“I didn’t know you collect this kind of things, Max.” Dad took a metallic turtle off the shelf and examined it. It wasn’t all that well-made, which meant it was most likely cheap. Now that he thought about it, the animal sculptures weren’t too many.

Max just shrugged, taking a metal goose from the shelf. He stared at it like it was the most interesting thing in the world. Dad could see something in his eyes that he couldn’t exactly recognize. Sadness?

“They’re pretty nice,” Dad commented, still searching for definition to describe what Max might be feeling.

“Thanks… I guess,” Max shrugged again. He was still staring at the goose.

“Where’d you get them?”

“Here and there,” Max answered vaguely. He paused, then elaborated, “The paperclips are easy to find. I take unused screws that are scattered in the garage.”

“And the sculptures?”

“I bought them.” The boy thumbed the goose’s head. “I saved some of my allowance to buy them. Some are gifts. And those,” Max pointed at his desk, “are Mom’s.”

Dad didn’t realize there were more at the desk. He put the turtle back on the shelf and moved to the desk, taking one of the bizarrely shaped sculptures; a cat with long neck and seemingly open stomach that housed several smaller, more normal-looking cats. “These are your mom’s?”

“Ones that she considered not good enough to sell or ones she loved too much to give away,” Max clarified. He picked up a long necked goofy-looking duck. “Or ones that she didn’t make seriously enough and gifted to me instead.”

Dad hummed. “That sounds like her.” He ran his thumb along the cat’s spiky spine, letting wistful memories dance beneath his eyelids. He put the sculpture down on the table, watching the sunlight wash over the metallic ridges. He found himself unable to speak as he felt mist in his eyes.

“Dad?” Max called tentatively, and he started. He sniffed and blinked, clearing his vision.

“Sorry, Max,” he faked a hopefully convincing grin, though from Max’s looks, he knew it wasn’t. Dang his son’s surprisingly perceptive eyes. “Got lost in thought for a bit, there.”

“Don’t we all?” Max muttered, putting the duck he still held back on the desk. He refused to meet Dad’s eyes, and Dad felt his heart break a little. Max had always been sarcastic and cynical, brooding, but ever since his mother’s death the tendencies strengthened. It was his coping mechanism, and Dad couldn’t blame him for it, but it hurt him that Max was still hurting over the loss.

He laughed mirthlessly, inwardly. Like he was someone to talk? He shook his head and clapped his hands loudly, causing Max to jump in surprise. “Well!” he declared. “Let’s start cleaning!”

“Seriously, Dad, I can do it alone,” Max protested in exasperation.

“Uh, no,” Dad lifted a brow. “That pile of dirty laundry says otherwise.”

Max burned red quite spectacularly. “I – I was just going to take care of it.”

“Uh-huh,” Dad stared at him in amusement. He didn’t believe him one bit.

“Laundry day’s still far away, anyway,” Max grumbled.

“And that’s a good reason to leave the mess on the floor?”

“Right, sorry.”

“Come on, come on. We’ll turn this mess into a sparkling clean room in no time!” His eyes twinkled mischievously. “I’ll even sing a cleaning song! I expect you to join me in a duet, Sonny.”

He laughed at Max’s agonized groan and grumbles that life wasn’t a Disney movie, though the boy still proceeded to clean anyway. But his thoughts weren’t all there. Memories of what once was haunted him, teasing from behind his eyelids, and phantom giggles of laughter he would never hear again goaded his ears. He torturing imagery held on until nightfall, until the store’s closing time, until the moment his head hit the pillow.

He understood Max’s pain. Of course he did. They lived in the same reality, experienced the same loss, the same pain of seeing someone they hold dear ripped away from their lives forever. Max tried so desperately to cope by building an armor of sarcasm and holding barbed words as his weapons and shield, holding anything that reminded him of his mother as close as possible to his heart beneath the protective walls.

Kind of like how he found himself unable to throw away his wife’s things, actually. Which was pretty stupid, now that he thought about it. Max’s collection, at least, held aesthetical values. The things he kept had no such values, and no one was able to use it save for his late wife.

But, maybe, just maybe…

An idea formed in his mind, blooming like a flower that refused to wilt. As he fell asleep, the idea hardened into a decision, and he immediately decided to go with the soon-hatched plan by the morning.

* * *

 

When he presented Max with the unassuming box, he was immediately greeted with a look of confusion mixed with suspicion. “What’s this?” asked the boy as he took the box.

“Oh, nothing much!” Dad replied with his usual sing-song voice. “Just a little gift I decided to give you.”

“This isn’t some cleaning kit or something, right?” Max asked wryly as he set the box on the floor and knelt by it, opening it.

“Nope,” was all Dad said. There was a sort of satisfaction that bloomed within him when he heard Max gasping loudly.

“Dad, this – “ Max looked up at him, face looking torn between shock and stunned awe.

“I couldn’t throw them away,” Dad admitted wistfully. “They’ve been a part of her for so long. But I can’t use them, myself, so they’re just gathering dust, mostly. But you’ve been down the garage often enough. She taught you how to use them, right?”

“Well, yeah, but…” Max gulped. “Dad, I can’t – I can’t take these.” He gestured to the box; to the welding helmet, the torch, the gloves.

“Why not?”

“They’re Mom’s!”

“All the more reason for you to have them!” He knelt and pushed the box into Max’s hands. “You hung around her workshop often enough to pick up things, and given her personality, she must have taught you a thing or two.” He took Max’s hands in his, meeting his son’s distraught eyes with a firm gaze. “Her tools are meant for creating things. They won’t be of use like this, sitting inside a cardboard box with nothing to do and no one to use them. Take them. _Create._ ” He squeezed. “She’d like that.”

“But I can’t – “ Max shut his eyes tight. “I can’t make things. Not the way she does. All I’ll be able to make is lumpy shapes that can’t be recognized as anything. I can’t do that, not to her.” _Not to the memory of her._

“You’ll learn,” Dad, countered immediately. “Maybe you can’t make anything right now, but given time you’ll be able to. Maybe next week you’ll be able to make snakes. Then caterpillars. Then dogs. Then lions.” He gave a small smile. “Learning is a process, Max. When I first met your mom, she wasn’t able to make all those beautiful, complicated sculptures. She kept practicing, though, and that was how she could make all those sculptures.”

“But this is basically a fire hazard!”

“Max, I am hurt to know that you don’t trust me enough to keep fire hazard on bay.” Dad pouted, feigning hurt immediately.

“Dad, you once replaced the smoke detector at the kitchen with a bowl from takeouts.”

“Details.”

Max glared, which elicited a laugh from Dad. Then his eyes flickered back to the box, looking uncertain once more.

“Max,” Dad’s voice was far gentler than he himself had expected. When Max looked up, their eyes met, and he could feel his gaze soften. “It’s okay. Take them.”

Max blinked and looked down once more. He pursed his lips and gulped. Slowly, he pulled his hands from Dad’s hold and reached down the box, taking the welding helmet that once belonged to Mom, staring at it silently. Then, just as slow, he nodded, swallowed, and lifted the helmet to his face, forehead touching the glass.

Dad shifted to Max’s side and circled his arms around the boy’s shoulders. If Max cried, he didn’t comment on it.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a prompt from torridatlantic (Tumblr), which I found a while ago but hadn’t managed to finish until now because university life is way more hectic than I thought it would be. Also, I would find and link the prompt, but the uni dorm’s wifi is crap, so I apologize. Basically, the prompt goes “Max collects metal things, Dad notices, and decides to gift him with Mom’s welding tools”. Which is basically the summary. I suck at summaries.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed that. Have a great day!


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